The Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down safely today.
There’s not much to add to this, except to note where I first heard that it was down, when I checked about a half hour after landing. The NASA website? No, no mention there. The Kennedy Space Center site? Nope, nothing. The KSC Space Shuttle Landing blog? No, that hasn’t been updated since February 17!
No, I saw it first on… Fark. Yes, Fark.
Nice work, NASA.
Too many Farkisms fit here:
- "Fail".
- "You know who else wouldn’t cover the Shuttle landing?"
- "Rick Romano reports that NASA websites may not be up-to-date."
- "Still no cure for spy satellites."
- "News: NASA site not updated. Fark: Bad Astronomer learns about Shuttle landing on Fark."
and, of course,
I’ll note too that after I drafted this post, NASA’s main page has a note that Atlantis landed safely.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:58 am
First thing I did was to go to Nasa TV, which was reporting the landing live. So in a sense, it was up to date… ish.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:03 am
watched it in real life, but yeah, you should have clicked on the streaming video from the nasa website. You could have watched it land live through our cameras.
btw: the sonic booms sound like cannons on base. I’ve probably heard every one of them since the beginning, but always a few miles south or west. Just closer I guess.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Another Farkism:
Ric Romano: People who mock my lack of currentness sometime misspell my first name.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:19 am
It was on the website, I was watching it live on the BBC (after listening to NASA tv) and I went poking about looking for details of the next missions and it was there. Granted this was 15 mins or so after landing,
February 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Well, what *I* heard from my brother in law who knows a guy who reads the web site called thegovernmentislyingtoyou.org is that they are shooting down the spy satellite as a warning to the Space Station. It’s basically NASA saying “We brought you into this world, and we can take you out of it.”
The astronauts will be taken from the Atlantis and flown directly to the Vatican (the *real* Vatican hidden under the Antarctic ice pack) where they must restate their loyalty oaths to the New World Order, or face prolonged sentences in pain amplification devices at Gitmo.
Seems those guys up there, especially when there’s Russians on board, have been having whispered conversations (picked up by secret microphones placed on the ISS by the NSA, the DEA, the NRO, the Department of the Interior and the National Endowment for the Arts) involving phrases like “independent colony” and “breakaway republic in orbit” and similar subversive things.
Oh, and according to enterprisemission.com, smokingscalarweapon.com and the Facebook page of a former alien abductee, the window for shooting down USA 193 is defined by the moon passing through the seventh house of Jupiter, and the alignment of Mars with a portion of the sky identified in ancient Vedic texts describing a nuclear war in India in 14,000 B.C.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Well I was watching it “live” on NASA TV on the webs.
…is it just me or the image is placed all weird?
February 20th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Bad Astronomer learns about Shuttle landing on Fark.
It’s even more impressive when you consider that Fark’s servers are still running even after a Space Shuttle landed on them.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I watched the ISS pass overhead yesterday evening, and a second object on basically the same track (I’m guessing the returning shuttle). My question is: Which was leading? I first thought ISS, followed by the decelerating shuttle. But decelerating in orbit lowers the orbit, which speeds up the track across the sky? I admit my orbital mechanics knowledge is thin. Can one of y’all tell this confused Texan what I saw at about 1847 CST yesterday? ISS & shuttle, or t’other way around?
February 20th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Well, NASA TV was grear source
But if you want to check out over “normal” sites (I watch NASA TV via Internet, because there is no real broadcast in Germany 
), why not www.spaceflightnow.com with their wonderful live-ticker!
February 20th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I first heard about Atlantis touching down safely on 680 News Toronto (which I have my clock radio alarm set to) while I was getting ready to go to work. They actually cut to a live broadcast of the landing, which was a nice surprise.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
If you watch NASA TV via NASA’s web site, you are half a minute or more behind - I’ve measured 41 seconds during recent events. Sometimes you read about an event having happened on a space blog before it takes place on ‘NASA live TV’ …
Closer to reality but still not there yet is regular television (in Germany Atlantis’ landing was carried by at least 3 freely available news programs): due to several TV satellites involved there is still a delay of several seconds.
The only way to follow NASA action truly live is … on the phoneline that carries NASA TV audio! Even here in Europe the delay is less than 1/5 second as I once measured during a Delta launch.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I just love the science fair photographs that Fark linked to.
February 20th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
science fair photographs
February 20th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Michelle, if you’re referring to Ackbar, I’m seeing the weirdness between it’s alignment and the following text as well.
Phil, I know you read every comment meticulously: check out FCKEditor for your WYSIWYG text editor. It produces cleaner html, making images and trailing text line up nicely. You’re probably using Wordpress’s default text editor, but be warned.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Fark is, by definition, ‘not news’. Shuttle missions Are News, or should be!
It’s with mixed enotions that we should view Shuttle landings as commonplace.
Also ; I’m blown away that this is taking place in my lifetime.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
It’s with mixed enotions that we should view Shuttle landings as commonplace.
Wasn’t that the whole point?
February 20th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Well Fark Nasa.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I saw the live feed on CNN in Spanish, taken directly from NASA TV.
I must say, that was a perfect landing. Afterwards, they showed just a little about USA 193, and the fireball that was seen on Washington.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Spaceflightnow tends to really match its name for launches and landings - e.g., blog entries between main-gear touch down and wheel stop.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
[…] Atlantis is safely down By The Bad Astronomer "News: NASA site not updated. Fark: Bad Astronomer learns about Shuttle landing on Fark." and, of course,. I’ll note too that after I drafted this post, NASA’s main page has a note that Atlantis landed safely. Bad Astronomy Blog - http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog […]
February 20th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Florida Today’s web site is also a pretty good source of NASA-related information. http://www.floridatoday.com
February 20th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Ric Romero, not “Romano”
/fark FTW